New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

11. A More Exact Comparison of Small and Large Enterprises

AsI have already said, American statisticians in this case take
      the value of the products raised on the farm, less those used as
      feed. Taken alone, these data, which appear to be available only
      in American statistics, are, of course, less exact than the
      figures for acreage or livestock, and the like. But considered
      as a whole, in relation to several millionfarms, and especially
      for the purpose of determining therelative standingof
      the various groups of farms in the country, these data
      undoubtedly cannot be regarded as less suitable than the
      rest. At any rate, these data are a much more direct indication
      than any others of the scale ofproduction, especially
      commercial operations, i.e., the value of the produce raised for
      the market. It should be borne in mind that any discussion of
      agricultural evolution and its laws centers on a consideration
      of small-scale and large-scaleproduction.

Whatis more, in such cases the point is always the evolution of
      agriculture under capitalism, in connection with capitalism,
      under its impact, or the like. To evaluate this impact the
      greatest efforts must above all be made to draw a line of
      distinction between “natural” and commercial economy in
      agriculture. It is well known that “natural” economy, i.e.,
      production for consumption on the home farm and not for the
      market, has a relatively important part to play in agriculture,
      and is giving way to commercial farming at an extremely slow
      pace. If the accepted principles of political economy are not to
      be applied mechanically but intelligently, the law of the
      displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, for
      instance, can be appliedonlyto commercial
      agriculture. It is hardly likely that anyone will object to this
      proposition from the theoretical standpoint. However, it is the
      rare economist or statistician who will make a special effort to
      bring out, trace and as far as possible take into account, the
      characteristics indicative of the transformation of natural into
      commercial agriculture A great step towards meeting this most
      important theoretical requirement is made by the classification
      of farms according to the money value of produce not used for
      feed.

Letus note that, when considering the undeniable fact that
      small-scale production is being displaced by large-scale
      production in industry, enterprises are always grouped according
      to the value of their product or the number of wage-workers
      employed. In industry, due to its technical peculiarities, the
      matter is much simpler. In. agriculture, because relationships
      are so much more complicated and intertwined, it is a great deal
      harder to determine the scale of operations, the value of the
      product and the extent towhich hired labour is employed. For
      the last-named item, it is necessary to take account of the
      total annual employment of hired labour and not merely the
      amount on hand when a census is taken, for agricultural
      operations are of an especially “seasonal” nature; in addition,
      it is necessary to list not only the permanent hired labourers
      but also the day-labourers who play a most important part in
      farming. To say that this is difficult is not to say that it is
      impossible. Rational methods of investigation adapted to the
      technical peculiarities of agriculture, including classification
      by output, the money value of the product, and the frequency and
      amount of hired labour employed, will have to be used on a much
      wider scale, in spite of the thick maze of bourgeois and
      petty-bourgeois prejudices and the efforts to embellish
      bourgeois realities. And it may be safely said that any step
      forward in the use of rational methods of investigation serve to
      confirm the truth that in capitalist society small scale
      production is being displaced by large-scale production both in
      industry and agriculture.

Letus take the 1900 returns for the groups of farms in America
      classified according to the value of their product:

Thefarms reporting no income, i.e., with a $0 value of product,
      probably consist primarily of newly occupied homesteads on which
      their owners had not yet had time to erect buildings, acquire
      livestock or sow and raise a crop. In a country like America,
      where colonization is still in progress on such a vast scale,
      special importance attachesto the question of how long a farmer
      has been in possession of his farm.

Leavingaside the zero-income farms, we get a picture quite
      similar to the one obtained above by grouping the same data
      according to total farm acreage. As the value of the product
      raised on a farm increases, there is also an increase in the
      average improved acreage, the average expenditure on hired
      labour, and the average value of implements and machinery. By
      and large, the more profitable farms—in terms of gross
      income, i.e., the value of their total product—turn out to
      have the larger acreage. It would appear that the new method of
      grouping has not yielded anything new-at all.

Butnow let us take the averages (the value of livestock and
      implements, expenditure on hired labour and fertilizers) per
      acre instead of per farm:

Theexceptions in some respects are the zero-income farms, which
      in general are in a very special position, and the farms with
      the highest incomes, which turn out to be less intensive than
      the next group, judging by three out of the four characteristics
      we have chosen. But on the whole we find a uniformincreasein the intensity of agriculturewith the
      increasein the value of the farm product.

Thisresult is the very opposite of the one obtained when farms
      were grouped by acreage.

Thesame figures yield diametrically different conclusions,
      depending on the method of grouping.

Asthe enterprise grows in size the intensity of agriculturedeclines—if the criterion is acreage, andincreases—if the criterion is the value of the
      product.

Whichof these two conclusions is the correct one?

Itis clear that if the land is not being improved, acreage
      givesno idea at allof the scale of agricultural
      operations (we must not forget that in America farms are grouped
      not only according to the improved acreage, but also by the
      total acreage and that in that country the proportion of the
      improved acreage ranges from 19 to 91% in the farm groups, and
      from 27 to 75%, in the geographical divisions); it givesno
      correctidea at all if besides this there are so many
      substantial differences between farms in the methods of
      cultivation, the intensity of agriculture, the methods of field
      cropping, quantities of fertilizers, the use of machinery, the
      character of livestock farming, etc.

Thisis known to apply toallcapitalist countries and
      even to all those whose agriculture is affected by capitalism.

Wesee here one of the most profound and general reasons why
      mistaken notions about the “superiority” of small-scale
      agriculture are so tenacious, and why bourgeois and
      petty-bourgeois prejudices of this type prove to be compatible
      with the great progress made in the last few decades by social
      statistics in general, and agricultural statistics in
      particular. To be sure, the tenacity of these mistakes and
      prejudices is also a matter of theinterestsof the
      bourgeoisie, who seek to cover up the depth of class
      contradictions in contemporary bourgeois society; and everyone
      knows that when it comes to interests, the most incontrovertible
      truths are liable to be questioned.

Butwe are here concerned only with an examination of the
      theoretical sources of the erroneous notion of the “superiority”
      of small-scale agriculture. There is no doubt at all that of all
      these sources the most important one is the uncritical, routine
      attitude to the hackneyed methods of comparing enterprises only
      by their total acreage or the improved acreage.

TheU.S.A. is an exception among capitalist countries in that it
      alone has a great deal of unoccupied, unsettled land, which is
      given away free. Agriculture still can and indeed does develop
      here through the occupation of vacant land, through the
      cultivation of virgin lands never before put to the
      plough—here it does develop in the form of themost
      primitive and extensive livestock and crop raising. There is
      nothing of the kind in the old, civilized countries of
      capitalist Europe. In these countries, agriculture developsmainlythrough intensive methods, not by increases in
      thequantityof land under cultivation, but by
      improvement in thequalityof cultivation, by increases
      in the amount of capital invested in the original acreage. Those
      who compare farms by acreage alone lose sight of this principal
      trend in capitalist agriculture, a trend which is gradually
      becoming the principal one in the United States as well.

Theprincipal trend in capitalist agriculture is the conversion
      ofsmall-scaleenterprise,which remains smallin terms of acreage,into large-scaleenterprise in
      terms of output, in the development of livestock raising, the
      quantity of fertilizers, the scale on which machinery is used,
      and the like.

Thatis why the conclusion drawn from the comparison of the
      various groups of enterprises by acreage—that the intensity
      of agriculture declines with the greater size of
      enterprise—is entirely incorrect. The only correct
      conclusion, on the contrary, is to be drawn from the comparison
      of the various farms by the value of their product—the
      bigger the enterprise, the greater is the intensity of
      agriculture.

Foracreage is only circumstantial evidence of the scale of
      agricultural operations, and the broader and more rapid the
      intensification of agriculture, the less authentic is this
      “evidence”. The value of the product of an enterprise is not
      circumstantial but direct evidence of the scale of its
      operations. Moreover, it is true in every case. By small-scale
      agriculture is always meant the kind that isnotbased
      on hired labour. But the transition to the exploitation of hired
      labour does not depend only on the extension of the acreage of
      an enterprise on its old technical basis—this occurs only
      in primitive, extensive enterprises—but also on an
      improvement of equipment and techniques and their modernization,
      investment in the same acreage of additional capital in the form
      of, say, new machinery or artificial fertilizers, or of
      increased and improved livestock, etc.

Theclassification of farms by the value of their product brings
      together enterprises which really havethe same scale of
      production, regardless of acreage. Accordingly, a highlyintensive enterprise on a small tract of land falls into the
      same group as a relatively extensive enterprise on a large
      tract; both are actually large-scale in terms of production and
      the employment of hired labour.

Onthe contrary, the classification by acreage throws together
      large and small enterprises, because they happen to have a
      similar acreage; it puts into the same group enterprises with an
      entirely different scale of operations, those in which family
      labour predominates, and those in which hired labour
      predominates. The result is a picture ofblunted class
      contradictionswithin capitalism, a picture which is
      basically incorrect and entirely misleading as to the actual
      state of affairs, but one the bourgeoisie is very fond of. This
      leads to an equally fallaciousembellishment of the
      condition of the small farmers, which the bourgeoisie is
      just as fond of. The net result is a vindication of capitalism.

Ineffect, the fundamental and principal trend of capitalism is
      the displacement of small-scale by large-scale production, both
      in industry and in agriculture. But this displacement should not
      be interpretedmerelyas immediate
      expropriation. Displacement also implies the ruin of the small
      farmers and a worsening of conditions on their farms, a process
      that may go on for years and decades. This deterioration assumes
      a variety of forms, such as the small farmer’s overwork or
      malnutrition, his heavy debts, worse feed and poorer care of
      livestock in general, poorer husbandry—cultivation,
      fertilization and the like—as well as technical stagnation
      on the farm, etc. If the researcher is to be absolved from the
      charge of wittingly or otherwise playing up to the bourgeoisie
      by giving a false impression of the condition of the small
      farmer, who is being ruined and oppressed, his task is, first
      and foremost, to give a precise definition of the symptoms of
      this ruination, which are not at all simple or uniform; his next
      task is to determine these symptoms, to analyze and, as far as
      possible, to define the extent to which they have spread and how
      they change with time. But present-day economists and
      statisticians hardly pay any attention to this vital aspect of
      the matter.

Justimagine that to a group of 90 small farmers who have no
      capital to improve their farms, who lag behind the times and are
      gradually being ruined the statistician adds 10 farmerswho have
      all the capital they need and on equally small tracts of land
      start large-scale operations based on hired labour. The net
      result would be an embellished picture of the condition of all
      the hundred small farmers.

TheU.S. Census of 1910 produced just that kind of embellished
      picture—and one that, objectively, favored the
      bourgeoisie—primarily because it discarded the method used
      in 1900 of comparing the acreage grouping and the
      value-of-product grouping. We learn, for instance, only that
      expenditure on fertilizers increased immensely, namely, by 115%,
      i.e., more than double the previous figure, while the
      expenditure on hired labour went up by only 82%, and the total
      crop value by 83%. This is tremendous progress. It is the
      progress of national agriculture as a whole. And, I dare say,
      some economist is likely to draw—if indeed has not yet
      drawn—the conclusion that this is the progress of
      small-scale family farming, for, generally speaking, the returns
      for the size groups by acreage indicate that “small-scale”
      agriculture has a much higher per-acre expenditure on
      fertilizers.

Butwe now know that such a conclusion would be fallacious,
      because the one thing the grouping of farms by acreage does is
      to lump together farmers on the way to ruin, or at any rate the
      indigent small farmers who cannot afford to buy fertilizers, andcapitalists(even if they are small-time capitalists)
      who, on small tracts of land, start large-scale farming
      operations with the use of up-to-date, intensive methods and the
      employment of hired labour.

Ifsmall-scale agriculture is being generally displaced by
      large-scale agriculture, as the figures for the total value of
      farm property in 1900 and 1910 show; if, as we shall presently
      see, the raising of highly capitalist crops on small tracts
      developed at an especially fast rate in this period; if,
      according to the general statistics on small and large
      enterprises grouped by the value of their product, expenditures
      for fertilizers increased proportionately with the scale of the
      enterprise—then the conclusion inevitably follows that the
      “progress” in the use of fertilizers from 1900 to 1910 went to
      increase the preponderance of capitalist agriculture over small
      agriculture, which was displaced and suppressed to an even
      greater extent.